Run by business professionals who are also poker enthusiasts.

We’ve Walked the Walk

IMAWHALE Staking Group is composed of business professionals with a strong background in the fundamentals required to run a successful business, coupled with an equally strong background in poker. We have a proven-effective structured approach to developing our clients into winning poker players, and giving them the support system they need to succeed. Contact us at staking@imawhale.com

Shane Sigsbee is the co-founder and CEO of IMAWHALE Staking Group. After graduating in 2007 with a finance degree from the University of Notre Dame, he moved to Chicago to work as an equity derivatives trader on the Chicago Board Options Exchange. In 2009 as the stock market continued to show signs of volatility, Sigsbee decided to pursue his passion of poker and began playing as a professional in addition to financially backing other players. Sigsbee is now a full-time financial backer of poker players and lives in Las Vegas.

Eric Deutsch is the co-founder and CFO of IMAWHALE Staking Group. He attended the University of Notre Dame where he graduated with a master’s degree in accounting in 2007. Post-college, Deutsch moved to Phoenix to work in public accounting before relocating to his hometown of Rochester, MN, where he currently serves as CFO of a private electronics company. A recreational poker player himself, Deutsch introduced Sigsbee to poker in college in 2002, a move that would later lead to a partnership in the poker industry.

Sean Kraper is a lead instructor at IMAWHALE Staking Group, overseeing the management and coaching of the cash game stable. Kraper left his job as a mortgage broker in 2011 to play poker full-time, a skill he learned by playing tournaments that paid out free drinks at local bars in his hometown of Orlando, FL. After Black Friday in 2011, Kraper saw a need to instruct other players on the game who were struggling to stay afloat. Utilizing his past coaching experience, he joined the IMAWHALE team in 2012 and made the move to Las Vegas in 2014. Sean plays 5/10 and 10/20 NLHE on US sites.

Dan Thomson is a lead instructor at IMAWHALE Staking Group. Originally from Western NY and now living in Las Vegas, Dan studied computer engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. He began playing online poker recreationally in 2006 in the wake of the Moneymaker boom, and after two years of studying the game and improving his skill set, he left his job in the technology sector to play poker full-time in 2008. Dan joined the IMAWHALE team in 2013, and is a known on the twoplustwo forums as “benjamin barker”. Dan plays 5/10 and 10/20 NLHE on US sites as well as 5/10 and 10/25 live.